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Snow or Opal??

whatisntseen

whatisntseen

What's This?
I bought this boy at least a year ago. I've asked this question before, but he was young and his colors have changed a bit. The guy I got him from called him a snow. If he is a snow, he is a very colorful one. I personally think he may be opal considering that his saddles are all lined with lavender. I took a few pics today and I tried to get the best ones for you all to look at, but they dont do him true justice. The lightest is the best overall picture, but the darker ones show more of the detail. I also stuck a headshot in there in case the patter is any indicator. I had an underside picture, but it didnt show the extremely pale checkers at all.

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I realize that he is a tad skinny. He had a small series of regurges and refusals, but is back on track, eating like a champ.

What are all of your opinions on his genetic makeup?
 
It's difficult to tell as the photos are fairly dark. Going by the amount of pigment seen in the photo of your snake's head, it seems to have more than either a regular snow or an opal would have at over a year of age. The other possibilities might be either a bubblegum snow or a coral snow.
 
If he was said to be an opal I'd believe it, but I think it is not very likely that someone tried to bred a snow and happened to have a couple both het or homo for lavender besides the genes for snow.
 
I completely agree with you, Blutengel. I don't remember much about the person I got him from other than that he had a hatchling normal that was unsexed and a larger creamsicle that I almost got instead. The rest of his snakes were colubrids of other sorts so I don't know if he was necessarily a breeder or a shop owner.

I'm completely fine with him being a coral snow. What would be a good morph to pair this guy up with in the future? He should be more than big enough to breed by next year. I was thinking opal or snopal. I don't have amels so I wouldnt mind them. I think it'd be a fun project.
 
Coral Snows are very nice because you can do a very large variety of projects. If I recall correctly a Coral is homo hypo (whoever says hypo is masked by amel needs a talking to). I think if you wanted to go into the opal direction, you should think about an opal het hypo or a hypo lav het amel. That way you offspring are...

50% Amel het Lav Ghost
50% Hypo Amel het Anery Lav

Or you could do a combo of other thing, like a Coral Blood project. I think Gallahager (sp?) has some Sunkissed Snows for sale right now, which would also make for a very cool project.
 
Oh- sorry for double post, but I also wanted to add something else- make sure that whatever you decide to do, that you can distinguish between offspring. Once you get into corals and anery lavs it can get very hard to know which morph is which for certain, and there is nothing worse than buying an Opal Ghost that turns out just to be a very pretty snow. ;) It's what made me completely rethink doing an ice opal blood project.
 
I never thought about distinguishing between the offspring. Good idea. I still have plenty of time to think about it, I have no plans to get another snake at the moment, so really I'm just brainstorming and considering whether or not I have to save up for my next pick or not.

I'm really glad I chose this snow over that creamsicle. It's turned out to be a beautiful snow/coral snow/whatever. I think figuring out its exact genetics, even if theyre simply amel and anery. Thats not to say that I wouldnt mind some amel het lav ghost babies. I think this is when genetics become really interesting, when you have an exceptional specimen to work with that could be hiding a gene, whther common or not.


As a side note: sorry for the dark pictures, but it was the only way to actually get decent pictures of him. Anytime I let the flash go completely, Id get a bright blur and if I took off the flash, I'd end up with something far far darker than the images pictured. White and pink snakes continue to prove to be extremely difficult to photograph. /shrug/
 
whatisntseen said:
I never thought about distinguishing between the offspring. Good idea. I still have plenty of time to think about it, I have no plans to get another snake at the moment, so really I'm just brainstorming and considering whether or not I have to save up for my next pick or not.

I'm really glad I chose this snow over that creamsicle. It's turned out to be a beautiful snow/coral snow/whatever. I think figuring out its exact genetics, even if theyre simply amel and anery. Thats not to say that I wouldnt mind some amel het lav ghost babies. I think this is when genetics become really interesting, when you have an exceptional specimen to work with that could be hiding a gene, whther common or not.


As a side note: sorry for the dark pictures, but it was the only way to actually get decent pictures of him. Anytime I let the flash go completely, Id get a bright blur and if I took off the flash, I'd end up with something far far darker than the images pictured. White and pink snakes continue to prove to be extremely difficult to photograph. /shrug/
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This is very true. It's also thinking like this that allows phases to be born, and superb examples within a phase.

When I think of the most influencial breeders in the cornsnake world, I instantly think of Rich Zuchowski and Kathy Love. What's interesting about that, though, is that the two breed with completely different styles.

Rich does a lot of work with different morphs and genes, combining each for a new combo. Most breeders nowadays take this route. Afterall, who WOULDN'T want a SunkissedGhostChristmasPewterOpalStrawberryCinderTopazUltraMotleyStriped-thing? And hey, it's great for testing out unknown hets, too!

What you don't see a lot of, though, are people taking what I like to call the 'Kathy Love Route of Selective Breeding.' Sure, Rich makes a lot of great quality animals, but there truely is nothing like Kathy's Okeetees. And while an Okeetee is 'just a normal,' you might as well get a Blizzard instead of your super-duper SunkissedGhostChristmasPewterOpalStrawberryCinderTopazUltraMotleyStriped-thing (both would probably equally... white). I would love to see some line breeding in some of the newer morphs.




.... wow, talk about going off on a tangent. And don't worry about the flash thing, I have the same problem. I have to fix up all my photos in Adobe CS2 (Photoshop) before posting them. :rofl:
 
Very pretty snake whatisntseen. I'm no expert, but he looks like a dead ringer for our Coral. Either way you have some real nice traits to work with. We have a pewter female we are looking forward to breeding him with when they are old enough. Maybe some nice young'n's to be had...

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Sorry for the lower quality pic, but I think you should be able to see the lavender and pink colors he shows.
 
I just re-read one of my sentences in my last post and it's a sentence fragment, annoying as I dont know what! Oh well, it happens!

It's true, the genetic morphs are great and all, but I find that line breeding is just as nice even if, like you said, it's just a 'normal' corn.

When I went to the show that i got the snow at, I had gone planning on getting my hands on a snow corn and I got one that is amazing. If anything, I may grab myself another bright snow or a coral snow to see if I can make some amazingly bright babies.

I was in a rush with the photos, so I just resized them and uploaded them. I may try to do a bit of editing later tonight to see if I can bring out more of the natural colors in photoshop.

I can't forget to thank all of you for your help and opinions! I truly appreciate it.
 
Feanturi, you're right, that coral looks so alike mine, it's almost uncanny. Now I'm excited to test for the hypo gene in him.
 
I don't even know what they'd look like. I'd have to find pictures of the brightest, most colorful corals and work from there. This will definitely be a fun project. I wish I knew the breeder's info just so I could thank him for my snow.
 
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